By Patrick Willemsen, Director of Technical Community, Aras
Key takeaways:
Disconnected systems create serious risk for global F&B manufacturers, from mislabeled products to compliance failures, because formulation, packaging, and regulatory data don’t talk to each other.
A digital thread solves this by creating a unified, real-time data flow across the entire product lifecycle, so a change in one area (like removing a banned ingredient) automatically updates everything else.
Manufacturers who build this infrastructure now aren’t just checking a compliance box; they’re building a competitive advantage as global traceability requirements tighten.
The food and beverage (F&B) industry has globalized at a rate and intensity that few industries have yet experienced. As a result, manufacturers now face increasing regulatory pressures, along with growing demands for product variation and transparency to meet consumer expectations across different regions. Traceability and compliance are no longer just regulatory obligations; they have become essential to brand trust and operational resilience.
Many F&B manufacturers are now asking how to keep up with changing regulations, customer preferences, and market demands without compromising production speed or quality. It is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain large-scale production without effective systems to organize and manage product and manufacturing data. For many manufacturers, digital thread technology is emerging as a practical response to these challenges.
Problems with traditional approaches to F&B manufacturing
Food and beverage manufacturing is a complex, process-driven industry shaped by formulas, recipes, frequent variation, packaging, and the growing role of product lifecycle management (PLM). While all manufacturers face pressures to meet quality goals and regulatory requirements, F&B manufacturers carry a unique burden: errors in formulation, labeling, or sourcing can pose serious health consequences for consumers.
As more variables are introduced into their manufacturing workflow, the risk of costly and dangerous production errors increases dramatically. These issues are often driven by disconnected systems that don’t communicate, limited visibility across the product lifecycle, and difficulty managing region-specific requirements and regulations.
Common scenarios include:
A red dye is approved for a globally manufactured fruit punch in some markets but prohibited in others. Inaccurate or unclear labeling leads to the production of non-compliant product variants for the European Union.
A bagged produce company sources lettuce from different farms by region. Incomplete supplier data in part of the supply chain results in lower-quality or spoiled produce reaching certain markets.
A baked goods manufacturer introduces products with shelf-life variations based on climate and distribution distance. Without integrated shelf-life and logistics data, some products expire before reaching store shelves.
A frozen foods company removes a newly banned ingredient for one country, but packaging artwork systems are not synchronized with formulation updates. Products ship with incorrect nutritional labels, triggering customs delays and market entry disruptions.
Without a unified approach to managing product data, global food and beverage manufacturers face a wide range of risks when processes and technologies don’t work together. Increasingly, a connected, end-to-end view of product information is proving to be the most effective way to address them.
What a digital thread looks like in food and beverage
Many of the issues described above stem from a lack of centralized documentation, data, and traceability. With an operational digital thread, most problems can be proactively identified and eliminated before they impact timelines or consumer outcomes.
A digital thread is a unified, real-time flow of data that connects the teams responsible for bringing a product to market, including food and formulation scientists, packaging development engineers, quality assurance teams, regulatory and compliance specialists, process engineers, and manufacturing operations. By connecting these roles through shared product data, a digital thread allows decisions made in one area of the product lifecycle to automatically inform others. In F&B manufacturing, a digital thread connects ingredients, allergens, nutritional data, functional properties, recipes, quality assessments, packaging specifications, labeling requirements, and regulatory documentation across the product lifecycle.
With the right data governance and integration practices in place, a digital thread can help F&B manufacturers manage complex product variations while maintaining end-to-end visibility. This visibility enables faster responses to safety issues, audits, and market changes, while also improving transparency and product quality for consumers. It also helps manufacturers manage stock keeping unit (SKU) proliferation by visualizing regional differences and understanding how changes to formulas or packaging can affect outcomes in different markets.
Traceability, compliance, and the push for greater transparency
One widely discussed transparency initiative is the EU’s Digital Product Passport (DPP), which was introduced under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) to improve lifecycle data transparency for durable products such as electronics, batteries, and textiles. Food products are currently outside the scope of the DPP, largely because they are perishable and already governed by extensive sector-specific regulations.
However, many observers expect DPP-like transparency and traceability expectations to emerge for food through adjacent regulations and evolving market practices. Similar digital transparency expectations are already emerging through mechanisms such as digital labeling initiatives, expanded traceability requirements, and the growing demand for ingredient-level data across supply chains.
Best practices for manufacturers investing in digital threads
Manufacturers pursuing a digital thread should consider the following best practices:
Prioritize connectivity: Connect existing systems rather than replacing them by establishing a digital thread, enabled by platforms built for integration, flexibility, and adaptability.
Embed compliance early: Incorporate regulatory requirements for ingredients, allergens, labeling, and regional market approvals during the earliest stages of product formulation and development. This is especially important as regulations become more widespread.
Strengthen quality assurance processes: Maintain clear audit trails across your operations and supply chain.
Clean and secure your data: Standardization and governance can both help you get your data in order across the enterprise.
Turning traceability into a strategic advantage
When implemented effectively, digital thread strategies enable food and beverage manufacturers to move beyond reactive compliance, supporting faster responses, greater consistency, and stronger trust with regulators and consumers.
For example, a beverage manufacturer may reformulate a drink to remove an ingredient restricted in a specific market. In a disconnected environment, formulation updates, packaging artwork changes, regulatory reviews, and manufacturing adjustments may occur in separate systems, increasing the risk of errors. With a digital thread in place, the ingredient change automatically triggers updates across formulation data, labeling requirements, regulatory documentation, and packaging specifications. This coordinated visibility reduces the risk of non-compliant products entering the market and shortens the time required to launch the updated product globally.
As global traceability requirements continue to evolve, manufacturers that invest proactively in digital thread capabilities position themselves for long-term advantage. By strengthening visibility and control across increasingly complex product lifecycles, F&B organizations can turn traceability from a regulatory necessity into a meaningful competitive differentiator.
Patrick Willemsen is Director of Technical Community with Aras. He has over 25 years of experience helping organizations establish Product Data Management (PDM) and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) practices. Patrick specializes in Requirements Management, Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE), “Green PLM,” and Configuration Management. In his role, Patrick helps customers understand business, process, and technical challenges in the early stage of a PLM project. Patrick has a master’s degree in chemical engineering. He lives in Switzerland with his wife and two sons and enjoys cheese fondue, sushi, and speeding down the hills in winter.
